Don't Downplay The Role of Preaching

As a guy who gets to preach more often these days, this is encouraging to read and remember.  We live in a culture of instant gratification.  The "long haul" blessing of something is rarely lauded as valuable.  Trevin Wax writes well here:

“Making a hospital visit to a suffering family makes more of an impact than the three points you made in your message on Sunday.”

Occasionally, I hear statements like this at pastors’ conferences and preaching seminars. The idea? Pastoral presence is more important than a pastor’s preaching. The implication? It’s better to spend less time worrying about your preaching and more time engaging people at a personal level.

Sounds good. But it’s shortsighted. And ultimately unhelpful.

Sure, there are pastors who spend all day in the study and never among the people. Those kinds of pastors need to be prodded out the door so they can better serve the flock. (Not to mention that being with the flock greatly enhances your preaching!)

It’s also true that most of your congregation already forgot the main points from your sermon last week. And yes, church members will long remember your presence during their time of crisis. But the point of your preaching isn’t that everyone will remember all the information you present anyway. Neither should preaching preparation be forgotten in the attempt to increase one’s pastoral presence.

No, instead we need to consider the relationship between preaching and presence in a way that measures impact beyond what is immediate, powerful, and memorable. That’s why I say: Do not downplay the long-term, cumulative effect of your preaching.

Preaching is formative in ways that go beyond mere information retention. Every time a pastor opens up the Word and preaches the gospel, he is showing his church how to approach the Bible. Pastors who elevate the Scriptures week after week, sermon after sermon, lead their people to approach the Bible in the same way.

Read the rest.

My take...

My experience with preaching is kind of like my experience with marriage.  I know that as a result of my marriage (learning to communicate well, learning to sacrifice, learning to conflict, etc) I am a different person than I was 13 years ago.  I can't tell you specifically how but rather, it is the cumulative effect of exposure over time.  My wife and I have just slowly grown more and more in love as we grow more and more in our relationship.  I don't remember the specifics of the thousands of ways this has happened over the course of the last decade+, but I know it HAS happened.

Same with preaching I think.  It is more the effect of soaking in the environment of it over the long haul that changes a person.  It's not about remembering something from every sermon but soaking in God's word week after week after week that, over time, brings about great sanctification in the life of the believer.